


Three-step Waltz

by pocketmouse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Psychic Abilities, proposed poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-25
Updated: 2011-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the Doctor is a little bit too psychic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three-step Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to such_heights for betaing this for me.  
> Written for the emotion play square for kink_bingo.

It was Rory who noticed it first. Which surprised Amy — she always thought she knew the Doctor better.

“Amy, the Doctor’s not psychic or anything, is he?” Rory slid into the chair next to her in the library.

She thought about it for a second. “Well, yeah, I think so. He must be.”

Unexpectedly, Rory buried his head in his hands. “Oh _no_.”

She frowned at him. “So what? If you’re worried he’s going to be smug because you’ve decided he’s all right after all, don’t worry, he won’t be. And he definitely hasn’t noticed that you’re checking out his arse, though don’t think _I_ haven’t.”

“Hey.” Rory looked up. “And no, that’s not it —”

“Then what’re you worried about? It’s not like he doesn’t do it without permission. I’ve only seen him do it once or twice, it’s very Vulcan mind-meldy.” She makes grabby hands at his face.

“Wait, he has to touch you? Oh good. Never mind, then. I thought —” Rory sagged back a little in the chair.

She looked at him suspiciously. “What is going on in your mind, mister?”

Rory looked like he wants to crawl under the chair. He hadn’t looked this embarrassed since Aunt Sharon had decided to give him the condom lecture — in front of Amy — because she was sure his dad hadn’t even thought of it. “I think maybe... the Doctor can tell when we’ve had sex? Like, in his head.” Rory pointed at his own head for emphasis.

“That’s mental, Rory.” She dismissed it immediately. “Why would you even think that? This is a bloke who apparently doesn’t see anything odd about dragging girls though spaceships in their nighties.” Or making off with them on the night before their wedding. Not that he’d known about that.

“He gets all chipper —”

“He’s always chipper.”

“— But he gets kind of hands-off. Which, you have to admit, is unlike him.”

Amy thought about it. Because Rory did have a point. There had been something awkward about the Doctor the other day, but she’d been too busy trying to get her brain to accept a red sky as normal and not a portent of doom to think about it. “No way.”

“Well, maybe it is just a coincidence. But it’s a really weird one.”

She eyed him up and down. “Only one way to find out.”

Rory slumped again, though this time it was with an attractive sprawl of his hips. “You just want to have sex in here again, don’t you?”

She grinned. “Let’s just say that’s in the plus column.”

  


Amy was beginning to suspect that Rory was right. Though ‘suspect’ probably wasn’t the right word, since they were running down a hill, Rory chanting “I’m right, I’m right, I’m right,” as they ran. The Doctor had pushed them through the door, and immediately yanked his hands back like they were on fire. And then he’d said he’d catch up with them, when until that moment the plan had been for all three of them to escape the totally-not-haunted-I-promise house.

“Okay! Okay! Maybe!” she shouted in response. “Can we talk about this when we’re not in mortal danger?”

“Didn’t think we should wait five months!”

She nearly threw her shoe at him.

They crept along the embankment at the bottom of the hill, trying to make their way around to the front of the house without being detected. “Well, what _are_ we going to do? I mean, he’s not being creepy about it —”

“Oh, yeah, not saying anything, just letting us continue, that’s not creepy,” Rory said, but he sounded unsure.

“He’s embarrassed. I bet he didn’t even know it’d happen. And I mean, really, how do you explain something like that?” She put on her best Doctor voice. “Amy, Rory, sorry, but I thought I ought to let you know I can feel it whenever you shag on my ship. Which is very nice, congratulations, but could you please stop going at it while I’m trying to eat?”

Rory stumbled and nearly fell. “Okay, no voices, please.” He sighed. “I suppose the only way to find out is to ask him. Maybe he just needs a pair of psychic earmuffs.”

“Maybe it’s not even psychic,” Amy pointed out. “I still don’t know where his bedroom is, it could be on the other side of the wall from ours and he’s got good hearing.”

“In that case, let’s ask him for a proper bed while we’re at it.”

Neither of them could work up the courage to ask, though, so Amy decided to go for the next best option — have the Doctor take them somewhere nice, with no monsters, and maybe they could snag a hotel room or sneak away for a bit, and at least test this psychic question out some more. So she told the Doctor she wanted to go to Rio.

The whole theory dropped away after that, not that she realized it.

  


Amy is too busy trying to process ‘Rory’s back! Oh my god, my _family’s_ back! My family was gone? Oh my god, the Doctor!’ so it’s once again Rory who says something, as the starship continues to hurtle through the clouds, tumbling towards the planet below.

“Right, I am getting the Doctor those psychic earmuffs when we get back. He’s just going to have to deal with us having sex on the TARDIS, because I am _not_ risking this every time we want to have a little fun.”

He’s absolutely right, of course. Three days into their honeymoon, after getting back from the Orient Express, and the Doctor had been so absolutely irritating, bouncing off the walls, flitting from one place to the next, that Amy had been glad to get off the TARDIS and away from him for a bit, but Rory has nailed down the reason for the Doctor’s flip in attitude.

“If you hold him down, I’ll make him talk about whatever it is he’s decided he’s doing, how’s that sound?” Amy growls. The ship bucks some more. Some Christmas.

“Surprisingly okay,” Rory replies. And he does sound surprised. “Two thousand years gives a man some time to grow on you, I guess.”

“Oh, don’t be so modest,” she replies. “It was the tux that did you in, wasn’t it.”

“Yeah.” Amy grins at that, but then she has to concentrate on the matters at hand, and puts aside all thoughts of Rory-and-the-Doctor until they’re back inside the TARDIS, Christmas saved and happily-ever-after as close as it ever gets.

Rory is still staring at the phone with suspicion, so Amy says “All right, Doctor, I think we’ve had enough honeymooning. I’d rather stick closer if you don’t mind, since it took you long enough to respond to this last distress call.”

“Excuse _me_ , the first time you used that your distress call was ‘Doctor, this planet is too boring.’”

“It _was_ ,” Amy insists. “The entire colony was in the middle of a fifty-year hibernation cycle. After a day or two, there was nothing left to do.” They’d run out of new and interesting places to have sex by that point.

The Doctor twitches a little, stepping around the console, away from her, which doesn’t escape Amy’s notice. “All right, fine. Although, are you sure? There’s a lovely little nebula a few galaxies over, famous for its —” He stops with a sudden gulp as Amy thinks about the way Rory had gone down on her last night.

“Stop avoiding it, Doctor.” She lets the thought slip away. “We should’ve talked about this a long time ago, but we didn’t, and I don’t want to lose what I’ve got now, so as much as I really don’t want to, I think we’ve got to talk about this. Me, Rory,” she pauses. “And you.”

The Doctor sighs, and sinks back against the console. Rory shoots a look of concern between him and Amy, like he isn’t sure which one he should be more worried about. Amy thinks it’s obvious — the Doctor.

It’s very quiet for a minute, and then the Doctor speaks. “I’m sorry. I never anticipated this would happen when you first came onboard, Rory.” His arms are crossed over his chest, like he’s shrinking in on himself. “My last few regenerations weren’t quite as psychically active, I’ve got used to not needing quite as much control to keep things out. And the two of you —” he chuckles dryly. “— Even a blind man could tell how in love the two of you are. I thought I could just ignore it, or get used to it, but it just kept —” he struggles for the right word “— there was always more of it. Like a little background hum, wherever you went, all the time.”

“All the time?” Rory interrupts. “I thought it was just when we —” he stops, cheeks reddening. “— You know.”

The Doctor reddens too. “Oh! No, no! Though it is more ...obvious, then,” he admits.

“What did you feel, then?” Amy asks, suddenly confused.

The Doctor looks surprised. “Love.”

“Oh.” She feels a little bowled over. Lust, that made sense. But love — somehow she wasn’t expecting that.

“All the time?” Rory repeats. “And that was bad?”

“Not bad,” the Doctor prevaricates. “Distracting.” He seems to be thinking for a moment, and then slowly, unfolds his arms from around himself, offering each of them his hand. Amy takes it, and after a cautious moment, Rory takes the other. The Doctor closes his eyes, and she can feel something, like getting ready, bracing herself, and then —

 _A slow feeling, lazy and content, hands sliding up her sides, a kiss on her cheek. She could lie here all day and be wrapped up in it, could because it would never go away, the feeling pouring into her and out of her, surrounding her. She reaches out, happy, because they’re here, always here, time has no meaning and place doesn’t matter, only the knowledge that she is in love_.

The feeling softens and slips away. The Doctor lets her hand go and Amy gasps, surprised to be back in her body. Rory’s mouth is open in surprise, hand clutching at empty air, and the Doctor is still between them, trying to look like he doesn’t think he’s just made a mistake. She’s already losing the sensation — a feeling of love, comfort, security, that much she can grasp. But no specifics, she’s not sure if there even were specifics or her mind made them up to give context to the feeling.

“Okay, wow,” she says at last. “I have got to learn to be more self-aware, if that’s what’s really going on in my head.”

“There’s other stuff in there, of course,” the Doctor says, voice rough, “but it’s not being blasted at quite the same volume as this. For instance, Rory has been wondering on and off for a while now why we haven’t come across any other species with rice-based cheesy snacks.”

“Maybe you’re hearing it so loudly because you’re part of it,” Amy says before the Doctor can derail the conversation completely by talking about Rory’s favorite food group.

“Yes — No — I — what?” the Doctor stammers.

Rory is nodding, though. “Yeah. I mean, if it’s got stronger. I wasn’t so sure about any of this when Amy first asked me to stay. But now I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be.” He takes the Doctor’s hand again. “Or any other people.” The Doctor looks at their hands, obviously confused. “So maybe you could ignore the thoughts you didn’t like, but the thoughts you did —”

The Doctor pulls his hand away. “I’m nine hundred years old, I can ignore anything I want to.”

“So do you want to?” Amy asks.

The Doctor looks tired. “You’re thinking in very human terms, Pond. And I’m not human. You can _want_ to ride the Great Wheel of Callifrigilas Nine all you want, but it’s not medically advised for anyone who doesn’t have three lungs and a backup spine. So please, don’t ask from me what I can’t do.”

She thinks about it. _Really_ thinks about it. “All right,” she says, then pulls him down for a kiss, his lips cool and hungry, and she can feel his restraint. “But don’t hold back because you think you should.”

The Doctor looks at her, then at Rory. “You’re both very special to me,” he says. “And what I want is for the two of you to be happy together.”

“We are,” Rory says, and then, maybe because he has more tact that she does, just pulls the Doctor in for a hug. “We just want you to be happy, too. So let us know if you change your mind, okay?” And maybe he doesn’t have that much restraint after all, because he does kiss the Doctor, just a quick brush across the lips, before letting him go.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the Doctor says quietly.

Something taps against the back of Amy’s brain, and she smiles at the feeling of contentment. Because she’s got both her boys, here with her. And loving people is hard — she knows this — so she’s willing to cut the Doctor some slack. Maybe he’ll change his mind, maybe he won’t. But he knows, and she can see, by the way he leans into them both for a minute, the faint uptick of his lips, that he is happy, too.


End file.
